How many of us gardeners dream of a big piece of land to call our own and let our plant obsessions run wild? For Bruce Wakefield and Jerry Grossnickle, creators of Old Germantown Gardens, that dream is reality. They’ve been gardening here for over 30 years and have transformed a scrubby 5-acre property into a plant paradise. Bruce is heavily involved in HPSO, having served as president for years, and countless visitors have toured his garden. The garden is probably best known for the stunning displays of Giant Himalayan Lilies in summer, but I got the chance to visit in… 

ARTICLE BY: LOREE BOHL Loree Bohl is an HPSO Board Member and the lady behind the blog Danger Garden, she’s a freelance garden writer and a spiky plant lover who grows desert loving plants here in Oregon. This article originally appeared in the Rock Garden Quarterly, the journal of the North American Rock Gardening Society, it is republished here with their permission. *** Summers in Portland, Oregon, are the stunning reward for our long, wet, grey and cool winters. Summer days are sunny and the weather is warm (some would say hot, and after the temperature records set this last summer I… 

ARTICLE BY: JANE FINCH-HOWELL Jane Finch-Howell blogs at Mulchmaid, where she practices zonal denial without a greenhouse. She enjoys simple forms, bright colors, tropical foliage, and anything in the Manzanita family. *** It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair… About 18 months ago, Ben and I realized…